Mum fails to get her daughter back

AN Oldham mum has lost a landmark case to get her child back from social services.

The young mother, in her early 20s and from Waterhead, believes Oldham Council wrongly took her baby from her in June 2009.

After unsuccessfully appealing the decision through UK courts she has now lost her case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

She accused the UK Government of violating her fundamental rights but her campaign to get back her three-year-old daughter failed when the court ruled her right to a fair hearing had not been breached.

The pivotal case was the first of its kind lodged with the court since it was founded in 1998.

The mum claimed her troubled childhood in the care system meant she was given no fair chance to prove she could be a good parent to her own baby.

In its ruling, the court described the woman’s own troubled childhood, in which she was moved between foster homes after suffering physical and emotional abuse.

She became pregnant in 2008 at 19, and after her daughter’s birth attempts were made to give her parenting skills. After a series of assessments, social workers decided it was unlikely she would be able to give her little girl the care she needs. The child was placed in care at seven months and in February 2010 a family judge directed her placement for adoption.

The complainant insisted her daughter would be better off with her long term and argued that her own childhood in the care system had caused her to be discriminated against.

Dismissing the case, the court ruled the assessments and orders were all designed to safeguard the little girl’s wellbeing and her adoption was “not disproportionate to that aim”.


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